It is often desirable to be able to rotate an object shown on a display screen of a display device associated with a computing device. Prevalent in manipulating objects such as images in the form of pictures and photos is an option to rotate the object a fixed amount (e.g., a quarter turn of ninety degrees (90°)) about a center point of the object. To rotate the object beyond the fixed amount, additional rotations of the same object may require multiple interactions with the computing device. It is also known that such rotations require interactions that are geographically remote from the object of interest. As a result, ease of use and efficiency are both compromised.
In the case of rotating an object represented using a three-dimensional frame of reference, it is known to require a user to indicate a point on the object with a computer mouse and then to drag that user-defined point to a desired position around an axis of rotation, which varies depending on the motion imparted on the computer mouse by the user. Moreover, if the user is required to define a desired axis of rotation, specifying the desired axis of rotation may be complicated and confusing.
What is desired is a simple, intuitive and quick way for user to rotate an object associated with either a two-dimensional frame of reference or a three-dimensional frame of reference to a desired orientation.